


Ghost in the Night

by Theoroark



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amputation, Angst, Families of Choice, Hurt/Comfort, In which "complicated" means "we have no idea what we're doing in this relationship, M/M, Medical Procedures, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Team as Family, but we keep doing it", it's complicated - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 23:47:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12143760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/pseuds/Theoroark
Summary: “Good night, Jesse.” McCree turned over and for a few minutes he was rustling and fidgeting, but he must have found a position that was both comfortable and accommodated his IVs and his still-sore stump, because soon he stilled. Gabriel sat at the side of his hospice bed and watched. His breathing grew slower and more even, and finally he heard the nasal snoring that had kept him up on countless embedded missions. Gabriel sighed and sat there at his bedside, one eye on the steady monitors and one eye on McCree.





	Ghost in the Night

“Is it okay if I go to sleep now?” McCree asked, bleary eyed and mumbling. “Like. It’s not gonna be a ‘going in to the light’ sorta thing, is it?”

 

Gabriel gave a raspy laugh. “The doc said you’ll be fine. I’ll stay here though. Just in case.”

 

“Alright,” he said. He burrowed into the pillow, frowning as he tried to get comfortable. “G’night, boss.”

 

“Good night, Jesse.” McCree turned over and for a few minutes he was rustling and fidgeting, but he must have found a position that was both comfortable and accommodated his IVs and his still-sore stump, because soon he stilled. Gabriel sat at the side of his hospice bed and watched. His breathing grew slower and more even, and finally he heard the nasal snoring that had kept him up on countless embedded missions. Gabriel sighed and sat there at his bedside, one eye on the steady monitors and one eye on McCree.

 

They were in some Blackwatch safe house in Singapore, the closest place Gabriel could get McCree to to stabilize him, a place he had never really intended Dr. Ziegler to know about, but that couldn’t be helped now. It had been a fairly standard assassination job, he just hadn’t expected the target’s husband to be quite so mean, or to have owned a rocket launcher. But that couldn’t be helped now.

 

He stood up from time to time and walked around the room, trying to keep himself awake. There was probably coffee in the next room. He should go and get that. Or check in with Genji, see how the debrief had gone. See if anyone raised a fuss about the fact that he had sent a subordinate in his place, when Blackwatch was already being kneecapped for every stray hair. But he could not bring himself to leave the room. The IVs and tubings and the restraints Dr. Ziegler had used when she had amputated what was left of McCree’s arm were holding him firmly in the confines of the four walls.

 

He had his holovid in his pocket, he thought absently. He should be doing work, at least. But it was alright. It had been a while since he had been alone with his thoughts.

 

He had lost track of time a while ago and so he did not know when the door opened, but he knew it was late and he had been sitting down at the bedside and when it did, he was not alone and for a second, he could not think.

 

“Are you okay, Gabe?” Jack asked quietly.

 

Gabriel closed his eyes. “Yeah.” He heard Jack cross the room to him– God, his footsteps were so loud, but he couldn’t help it, could he, they had made him too big, they had made them both too big– and then he felt his hands on his shoulders and his lips on the top of his head.

 

“Angela said he would be okay,” Jack murmured into what was left of his hair.

 

“He will be.”

 

“Then I won’t tell you that you should get some sleep.” Gabriel snorted and Jack began rubbing his shoulders slowly, kneading deep into the muscle. “I’m so sorry, Gabe.”

 

“You didn’t have to come,” he said. His eyes were fixed on McCree.

 

Jack hummed and continued his massage. “Ana told me to tell you that she’s sorry, too. That you can call her whenever you want. And that she can help Jesse in the range, when he’s getting used to the new arm.”

 

“You didn’t have to come,” he repeated. Jack hummed again and kissed the top of his head again.

 

“I love you,” he said. “I’m not going to lie and tell you I came here for any reason but that.”

 

They were silent for a minute, Gabriel sitting there with his eyes closed, Jack’s hands heavy on his shoulders.

 

“Ana loves you too,” Jack said finally. Gabriel barked out a laugh in surprise and he knew Jack was grinning without having to turn around. “Different from me. I feel like she’d want me to specify that.”

 

“Clearly, since she couldn’t be bothered to make the trip.” Jack swatted at his ear.

 

“I feel like she’d want me to do that too.” He kissed the point of impact and smiled when Gabriel squirmed away from him, ticklish. “I was worried about you. I knew you would be okay. But I had to see you, too make sure.”

 

“I know,” Gabriel said. His gaze was back on McCree, and Jack’s hands began moving along his shoulders again. He sighed in spite of himself. “I missed this.”

 

“I did too.”

 

“God.” Gabriel ran a hand down his face. “Did we ever even break up?”

 

Jack laughed, and Gabriel felt the vibrations across his chest. “Maybe? Christ. Gabe, I have no goddamn idea how we would even go about doing that.”

 

“Me neither.” He tilted his head back, and Jack ran a hand down his cheek, through his too-long beard, before sliding it back down to his shoulder. “Why did we never get married, again?”

 

“I don’t know. Something about the robot apocalypse, and you being my commanding officer, and then us being responsible for rebuilding the world after the robot apocalypse, and us having fundamentally different views about how best to achieve that…”

 

“Mmm. Doesn’t seem like very good reasons.”

 

“It will tomorrow,” Jack said quietly. Then he tapped at his lens and frowned. “Or. Well. It will after whenever it is you finally get some sleep.”

 

“Yeah,” Gabriel said quietly. They remained there for a while– he wasn’t quite sure how long, his sense of time became warped again as he focused on how he could feel the rise and fall of Jack’s stomach and how Jack’s hands had moved to the middle of his back.

 

But at some point, Jack spoke again. “You’re the best thing that could have happened to him, Gabe,” he said. “You saved his life. You made him a part of something amazing. I know he loves you so much.”

 

Gabe closed his eyes and leaned back further. “You didn’t say that at the time.”

 

“Ha. No.”

 

“I thought Ana was going to bodily carry him to social services.”

 

“Thank Christ for the crumbling social infrastructure of rural America, for putting off even the most dedicated of soldiers.” Gabriel snorted and opened his eyes. He saw Jack’s face for the first time, and his face was so much more wrinkled than he remembered, he was still blonde, somehow, but he was so evidently older now.

 

“We should have had kids,” he said. Jack sighed.

 

“You should have had kids. I would have been a terrible dad.”

 

“Would not.” Jack rolled his eyes and Gabriel pressed on. “How the hell did Ana pull it off.”

 

“Well, you know. You and I, we’re big picture people. We can get lost in that. Ana, though, Ana never loses sight of the details. ‘There’s a sniper in the third floor window,’ ‘there’s no cover, we’ll be sitting ducks if we’re ambushed,’ ‘this is possibly the only time in my life when I’ll be able to conceivably balance a young child and my career,’ ‘your fly’s down, Jack…’” Gabriel laughed and Jack gave a small smile. “We were never going to be winners in this, Gabe. But you made out as good as you could have, I think.”

 

“Coulda done better,” he murmured.

 

“Maybe.” Jack moved away from him and Gabriel frowned at the sudden loss of his hands and his warmth, but then Jack was kneeling next to him. “But Gabe, I…”

 

He looked down, and his eyes were shining. Gabriel brought his hand to his cheek and Jack leaned into it.

 

“I don’t know how things are going to turn out,” Jack said quietly. “I don’t know what the world’s going to look like and I don’t know how we’re going to handle it. But Gabe, I know I love you, and Ana loves you. And that when I heard, it was like I was half-dead, until I could see you. I know that’s never going away. I know we will always come for you.”

 

Gabriel leaned in and kissed him. He could feel Jack’s tears on his thumb and he looked down when they broke apart.

 

“I love you too,” he said hoarsely. Jack nodded and stood up.

 

“I have a meeting with the Secretary General tomorrow—this morning. Otherwise–“

 

“I know,” Gabriel said. He turned back to McCree and the monitors. “Thank you, Jack.” Jack kissed the top of his head one more time, and then Gabriel heard his heavy footsteps getting quieter and the door shutting behind him.

 

Some point in time later, some severals of hours, when the sun had risen and Dr. Ziegler had come back to the safe house, McCree woke up. He looked confused as he blinked the sleep from his eyes.

 

“What’re you doing here, boss?’’ Gabriel sighed.

 

“You told me to wait for you.”

 

McCree frowned. “I was on a helluva lot of painkillers–“

 

“I know.” Gabriel stood up. “I’m going to get some sleep now. Dr. Ziegler’s around. Call her if you need something.”

 

“Right,” McCree said quietly. “Thanks.”

 

Gabriel left the room and walked past a concerned looking Dr. Ziegler and fell into the bed in the next bedroom. He was alone with his thoughts again, and so he fell asleep as quickly as possible.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is tacticalgrandma, if you want to talk to me there.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and any comments/kudos would mean the world to me <3


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